Apple iPlans keep it simple — Trust Apple to turn something as mundane as a phone plan into a marketing coup. — Apple and AT&T have announced three calling plans to match with the iPhone, which is all set to launch at the end of the week. The three tier plans are $59.99 for 450 minutes …

'Day of silence' for US web radio — Web radio broadcasters across the US will hold a "day of silence" on Tuesday in protest at plans to hike royalty payments when music is played online. — The plan - due to come into force on 15 July - could cost webcasters around $1bn in additional administration fees, protesters claim.

Yahoo! Music goes radio silent — Apologies to anyone who was hoping to listen to free LAUNCHcast today. We're shutting down the Internet's #1 radio service for the day to draw attention to the outrageous rates recently set by the Copyright Royalty Board in Washington, D.C.

Flickr Photos Integrated into Yahoo Image Search — Yahoo Image Search has added Flickr images into its image index. Now, Yahoo Image Search is serving over 300 million Flickr photos in its query results via a live feed from Flickr; so once an image is uploaded to a Flickr account, it's available via Yahoo Image Search too.

Digitalsmiths's VideoSense gets $6 million — And the video advertising buildup continues. Latest to claim a share of the projected $4.8 billion video advertising market is the North Carolina based 9 year old company, Digitalsmiths Corporation. This company announced today that it has raised …

Sun Supercomputer Waits on AMD Chips — As Sun Microsystems Inc. prepares to demonstrate a new high-performance computer Tuesday at a technology conference in Germany, it hopes that quad-core processors from Advanced Micro Devices Inc. that will power the computer arrive on time to deliver one of the machines to its first customer.

Sorry CNET, You've Mistaken Me For Someone Who Gives A Damn — The blogosphere (but not CNET) seems to have moved on from this weekend's diversionary game of whack-a-blogger. Valleywag started the mud slinging by suggesting that a bunch of FM authors, including me, were taking payoffs to write advertising content.

Lijit raises $3.3M for intimate blog search — Lijit, a provider of a more extensive search service for blogs, has said it raised a $3.3M second round of funding. — Lijit, of Louisville, Colorado, doesn't limit readers to searching blog posts. It also provides them results …

Dow Jones, News Corp. Agree On Set of Editorial Protections — Dow Jones & Co. and News Corp. have agreed in principle on a set of editorial protections for Dow Jones, according to people familiar with the matter. — The two sides finalized the last points on the agreement this morning, these people said.

U.S. Net access not all that speedy — The USA trails other industrialized nations in high-speed Internet access and may never catch up unless quick action is taken by public-policymakers, a report commissioned by the Communications Workers of America warns.

Spock - Vertical Search Done Right — There has been quite a lot of buzz lately around a vertical search engine for people, called Spock. While still in private beta, the engine has already impressed users with its rich feature set and social aspects. Yet, there something …

DON'T GET 'HUNG UP' ON BUYING AN IPHONE — TENS of thousands of people are expected to line up this Friday for themost hyped gadget of the decade - the iPhone. — Don't be one of them. — Oh, it's a technological marvel. But Apple's all-in-one handheld isn't the best cellphone …

Closing Threadwatch This Friday — I hate to do this, but this Friday I am closing Threadwatch. I don't think the site died at any specific point, it has been more of a process, which I will outline below: — When the site was created it was designed to be controvercial and push the edges.